All The Power In The World University Press Scholarship Online

This bold and original work of philosophy presents an exciting new picture of concrete reality. Peter Unger provocatively breaks with what he terms the conservatism of present-day philosophy, and returns to central themes from Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Russell. Wiping the slate clean, Unger works, from the ground up, to formulate a new metaphysic capable of accommodating our distinctly human perspective. He proposes a world with inherently powerful particulars of two basic sorts: one mental but not physical, the other physical but not mental. Whether of one sort or the other, each individual possesses powers for determining his or her own course, as well as powers for interaction with other individuals. It is only a purely mental particular--an immaterial soul, like yourself--that is ever fit for real choosing, or for conscious experiencing. Rigorously reasoning that the only satisfactory metaphysic is one that situates the physical alongside the non-physical, Unger carefully explains the genesis of, and continual interaction of, the two sides of our deeply dualistic world. Written in an accessible and entertaining style, while advancing philosophical scholarship, All the Power in the World takes readers on a philosophical journey into the nature of reality. In this riveting intellectual adventure, Unger reveals the need for an entirely novel approach to the nature of physical reality--and shows how this approach can lead to wholly unexpected possibilities, including disembodied human existence for billions of years. All the Power in the World returns philosophy to its most ambitious roots in its fearless attempt to answer profoundly difficult human questions about ourselves and our world. Preface......Page 8 Contents......Page 22 1 / THE MYSTERY OF THE PHYSICAL......Page 34 1. A Brief Exposition of the Scientiphical Metaphysic......Page 37 2. Three Kinds of Basic Property and the Denial of Qualities......Page 40 3. The Denial of Qualities, Particles in Space and Spaces in a Plenum......Page 51 4. When Limited by the Denial, How to Conceive a Particle's Propensities?......Page 56 5. Can Particles Rotate, but Not Plenumate Bubbles?......Page 60 6. Simple Attempts at Clear Conception May Highlight Our Mystery......Page 62 7. Rejecting the Denial, but Postponing a Resolution of Our Mystery......Page 64 1. I Am a Real Thinking Being and You Are Another......Page 67 2. We Are Differentially Responsive Individuals......Page 71 3. Against Descartes, We Are Intermittently Conscious Individuals......Page 76 4. Our Realistic Response to Descartes Raises a Problem of Our Unconscious Quality......Page 79 5. Against Hume's Restriction, Human Understanding Transcends Human Experience......Page 80 6. We Are Experientially Varying Individuals......Page 84 7. We Are Not Bundles of Experiences, Thoughts or Perceptions......Page 86 8. We Substantial Individuals Are More Basic Than Our Thoughts and Experiences......Page 89 9. As We Communicate with Each Other, We Are Reciprocal Interaction Partners......Page 94 10. There Is Perplexity Concerning How We Commonly Communicate......Page 97 11. Much of the World Interacts with Us, But Doesn't Communicate with Us......Page 99 12. We Often Choose What to Think About, and Even What to Communicate......Page 102 1. We Recall the Denial of Quality and the Mystery of the Physical......Page 105 2. Spatially Extensible Qualities and Intelligible Propensities......Page 107 3. Spatially Extensible Qualities Are Perfectly Pervasive Properties......Page 113 4. Intelligible Physical Reality and a Principle of Constrained Contingency......Page 118 5. Extensible Qualities as a Factor in the Development of Physical Reality: A Problem......Page 121 6. The Problem of Influence for Extensible Qualities in Physical Reality: A Solution......Page 122 7. Mutually Isolated Concrete Worlds and Distinct Eons of the Actual World......Page 124 8. Mightn't the Recognized Physical Properties Just Be Spatially Extensible Qualities?......Page 129 9. The Identity Theory of Qualities and Dispositions......Page 131 10. A Limited Identity Theory?......Page 137 11. Can There Be Spatially Extensible Yellow Entities That Aren't Ever Propensitied?......Page 140 12. Can an Extensible Blue Body Be Attracted by Concreta That Aren't Blue-Attractors?......Page 142 13. Can an Extensible Blue Body Be Perceived to Be Extensible Blue?......Page 143 14. We Consider an Antinomy of Spatially Extensible Quality......Page 148 15. The Ontological Parity of Qualities and Propensities: By Contrast with Hume......Page 154 16. The Ontological Parity of Qualities and Propensities: By Contrast with Lewis......Page 164 17. What May We Learn from Our Demystification of the Physical?......Page 167 18. Remarks on What's Been Done and on What's to Come......Page 172 1. The Qualities Most Available to Me Are My Own When Consciously Experiencing......Page 176 2. Our Power to Experience Promotes Our Conceiving Concrete Individuals......Page 181 3. Our Power to Experience Visually Promotes Our Conceiving Concrete Spatial Things......Page 184 4. Might Our Idea of Spatially Extensible Color Be Our Most Central Concept of Color?......Page 188 5. Our Power to Experience Auditorally Can't Promote Such Full Spatial Conceiving......Page 190 6. Might an Extensible Red Object Be Qualitatively Like an Experiential Red Subject?......Page 193 7. The Great Range of Color for Spatially Extended Concreta......Page 198 8. Contrasting Quality Families and a Sketchy Speculation......Page 200 9. Transparently Colored Bodies and Opaquely Colored Bodies: A Neglected Distinction......Page 202 10. Is This Neglected Distinction Philosophically Significant?......Page 204 11. Conscious Perceiving as an Aid to Fuller Conceiving......Page 208 12. Full Conceiving of Concreta Is both Experiential and Intellectual......Page 210 13. Extrapolating from the Highly Experiential in Conceiving Spatial Individuals......Page 212 14. Conceiving Concreta All Qualitied Uniformly, but Propensitied Quite Variously......Page 215 15. Are Felt Bodily Qualities Well Suited to Conceiving Nonmental Individuals?......Page 222 16. How Well Do We Conceive Insensate Bodies as Pervaded with Tactile Qualities?......Page 224 17. Extensible Qualities, Experiential Qualities and Powers to Affect Experientially......Page 227 18. Why Our Idea of Spatially Extensible Color May Be Our Most Central Idea of Color......Page 230 19. We Focus on Substantive Metaphysics, Not Natural Languages or Conceptual Relations......Page 237 1. The Idea That All Propensities Concern Something as to Quality......Page 242 2. Power-directed Powers (Propensities with Respect to Propensities)......Page 244 3. Power-directed Powers May Distinctively Distinguish among Other Powers......Page 247 4. Propensity, Possibility, Accident and Probability......Page 257 5. Power-directed Powers and Probabilistic Propensities of Very Low Degree......Page 260 6. Powers are Nonconditional, Including Powers to Acquire and Lose (Other) Powers......Page 263 7. Standard Scientific Thinking and Generalistically-directed Propensities......Page 270 8. Individualistically-directed Propensities......Page 273 9. Individualistically-directed Propensities and Cartesian Dualism......Page 277 10. Individualistic Propensities and the Intellectual Aspect of Our Conceiving......Page 279 11. Self-directed Propensities: A Special Case of Individualistically-directed Propensities......Page 285 12. A Human's Self-directed Propensities with Respect to Her Own Experiencing......Page 286 13. Can There Be Any Concrete Entities That Aren't Ever Propensitied?......Page 290 14. Scientiphicalism, Self-directed Propensity and Experiential Awareness......Page 294 15. Temporal Monotony and Temporal Change......Page 297 16. Propensity for Monotony and Propensity for Change......Page 299 17. Possibility, Accident, Probability and Self-directed Propensity......Page 308 18. Basic Concreta, Propensity for Annihilation and Propensity for Continuation......Page 309 19. Self-directed Propensities with Respect to Propensities: The Basis of Stable Monotony......Page 317 20. Thinking about OTHERONS: A Good Long-Term Investment for Substantial Dualists?......Page 322 21. The Confused Idea of a World's Default Setting......Page 326 22. Time without Change......Page 329 23. Do Our Reciprocal Propensity Partners Present a Cosmic Miracle?......Page 331 6 / IS FREE WILL COMPATIBLE WITH SCIENTIPHICALISM?......Page 340 1. A Few Points about Real Choice......Page 344 2. Free Will and Determinism, Real Choice and Inevitabilism: Not an Urgent Issue......Page 347 3. A Widely Disturbing Argument Presents a More Urgent Issue......Page 349 4. Real Choice (Free Will) Is Incompatible with Inevitabilism (Determinism)......Page 350 5. Is Real Choice Incompatible with the Denial of Inevitabilism?......Page 351 6. Our Scientiphical Metaphysic and the Currently Dominant Conception of Ourselves......Page 354 7. Simple Physical Entities and Their Basic Properties......Page 356 8. Reciprocal Propensities, and Physical Laws......Page 358 9. Objective Probabilities, Random Happenings and Real Choices......Page 361 10. Can Inhering in a Field Help Us Have Real Choice?......Page 363 11. Can an -Infinitely Deep Hierarchy" of Physical Powers Help Us Have Real Choice?......Page 364 12. Radically Emergent Beings with a Radically Emergent Power to Choose......Page 366 13. Physical-and-Mental Complexes with a Radically Emergent Power to Choose......Page 372 14. The Scientiphically Supposed Causal Closure of the Physical: How Much a Side Issue?......Page 374 15. Are Physically Effective Choosing Souls Compatible with Physical Conservation Laws?......Page 378 16. Are Physically Effective Choosing Souls Compatible with Other Physical Principles?......Page 383 17. Radically Self-directed Power......Page 385 18. An Exemption from Natural Law Is Required for Real Choice......Page 387 19. The Real Reason Why an Exemption from Natural Law Is Required for Real Choice......Page 389 20. Apparent Scientiphical Incompatibilisms and Further Philosophical Explorations......Page 391 7 / WHY WE REALLY MAY BE IMMATERIAL SOULS......Page 393 1. Recalling the Problem of the Many......Page 397 2. A Couple of Comments on That Comparatively Uninteresting Problem......Page 402 3. The Experiential Problem of the Many......Page 407 4. How the Singularity of Experiencing May Favor Substantial Dualism......Page 412 5. Many Overlapping Experiencers, but Only One of Them Now Experiencing?......Page 414 6. Some Cases of Singular Causal Resolution......Page 416 7. An Immaterial Experiencer's Causally Resolved Singularity Is a Relevant Singularity......Page 423 8. These Are Metaphysical Matters, Transcending All Purely Semantic Issues......Page 425 9. These Problems Transcend Questions of Spatial Boundary: On Complex Complexes......Page 428 10. Problems of Propensitively Redundant Propensitive Contributors......Page 433 11. Our Experiential Problem Doesn't Presuppose Any Suspicious Identifications......Page 438 12. The Problem of Too Many Real Choosers......Page 445 13. Wholly Immaterial Souls Favored over Emergentist Physical-and-Mental Complexes......Page 449 14. A Singular Physical Manifestation of Many Choosers' Powers to Choose?......Page 451 15. Do These Problems Favor Substantial Dualism over Its Most Salient Alternatives?......Page 455 16. Some Less Salient Options to a Quasi-Cartesian Substantial Dualism......Page 458 17. Aren't Immaterial Souls Really Just Eliminable Middlemen?......Page 468 18. Wholly Immaterial Souls Are Generated Abruptly, Not Gradually......Page 471 19. Our Own Souls and the Wholly Immaterial Souls of Nonhuman Animals......Page 477 20. Metaphysically Material Ruminations about Extraordinarily Different Gestations......Page 479 21. People and Nonhuman Animals Again: Might All Souls Be Equally Powerful Individuals?......Page 482 22. Bodily Flexibility as Regards Individualistically-directed Soulful Propensity......Page 487 23. Taking Stock and Moving On......Page 492 Appendix: Beyond Discriminative Vagueness, Safe from Nihilistic Sorites......Page 496 8 / WHY WE MAY BECOME DISEMBODIED, BUT TO NO AVAIL......Page 501 1. Why We May Become Disembodied Souls, with the Deaths of Our Brains and Bodies......Page 502 2. Even While You May Be an Immaterial Soul, Are You really an Existential OTHERON?......Page 504 3. Immaterial OTHERONS Are Just as Problematic as Material OTHERONS......Page 508 4. Metaphysical Asymmetries and Further Forms of Substantial Dualism......Page 513 5. Some Questions about Disembodiment, and about Reincarnation......Page 516 6. Prospects for Disembodiment......Page 517 7. Even If We Disembodied Souls Last for Eons, What Are Our Prospects for Experiencing?......Page 521 8. What Are Our Prospects for Reincarnation?......Page 527 9. The Question of Disembodied Souls and the Question of an Almighty Creator......Page 532 10. Why Our Long-Term Prospects May Be Very Bleak Prospects......Page 539 9 / THE PROBLEM OF OUR UNCONSCIOUS QUALITY......Page 542 1. Physical Objects Aptly Qualitied, Experiencers Differently Qualitied Just as Aptly......Page 543 2. Every Individual Is Qualitied, Including You and Me......Page 544 3. We Reconsider the Problem of Our Unconscious Quality......Page 545 4. We Notice How Descartes Heroically Denies this Problem......Page 549 5. A Quasi-Humean Substantial Dualist May Heroically Deny the Problem......Page 551 6. A •"Compositist" Substantial Dualist May Similarly Deny the Problem......Page 552 7. Will Unconscious Experiential Quality Provide a Less Heroic Dualistic Answer?......Page 554 8. How Fully May Dualists Offer a Speculative Answer to the Problem?......Page 557 10 / HOW RICH IS CONCRETE REALITY?......Page 559 1. Sameness and Difference of Concrete Individuals......Page 560 2. Conceiving Nonspatial Simultaneous Souls, Always Precisely Alike......Page 563 3. Berkeleyan Idealism: Even If Just Modestly Grasped, It Might Be True......Page 567 4. Cartesian Dualism: Even If Just Modestly Grasped, It Also Might Be True......Page 568 5. Substantial Individuals and Our Conceptions as to Such Concrete Particulars......Page 571 6. We Prepare an Analogy between the Properly Spatial and the Relevantly Spacelike......Page 573 7. The Hypothesis of Spacelike Extension: An Analogical Speculation......Page 576 8. The Deflationary Approach: An Apparent Alternative......Page 579 9. An Hypothesized Dimension Far More Like Space Than Like Time......Page 581 10. Our Fullest Conceptions of Spatial Bodies......Page 585 11. An Analogical Conception of Nonspatial Souls......Page 588 12. Our Hypothesis Allows More Fully Conceivable Substantial Dualist Views......Page 591 13. Nondualistic Forms of This Hypothesis: Integrated and Nonintegrated Dimensions......Page 594 14. How Might We Nonspatial Souls Precede Even Our Initial Physical Embodiment?......Page 598 15. Do Immaterial Souls Ever Change Propensitively?......Page 607 16. A More Complex Quasi-Emergentive Dualism: A Constitutional View of Souls......Page 612 17. Drawbacks of This Constitutional View......Page 616 18. Fusional Dualism......Page 618 19. Our Hypothesized Dualism and the Mental Problems of the Many......Page 620 20. Our Hypothesized Dualism and the Problem of Our Unconscious Quality......Page 623 21. Recalling and Addressing the Question of Nicely Matched Propensity Partners......Page 625 22. Our Hypothesized Dualism and the Question of Nicely Matched Propensity Partners......Page 632 23. Does Our Hypothesized Dualism Make My Current Quality Too Inaccessible?......Page 637 24. Two Cartesian Arguments for Some Spacelikely Substantial Dualism......Page 641 25. Is Reality's Temporal Aspect Uniquely Distinctive?......Page 647 26. Why Are Our Concrete Conceptions of Such Limited Variety?......Page 649 Bibliography......Page 654 Index......Page 660 Preface 8 Contents 22 1 / THE MYSTERY OF THE PHYSICAL 34 1. A Brief Exposition of the Scientiphical Metaphysic 37 2. Three Kinds of Basic Property and the Denial of Qualities 40 3. The Denial of Qualities, Particles in Space and Spaces in a Plenum 51 4. When Limited by the Denial, How to Conceive a Particle's Propensities? 56 5. Can Particles Rotate, but Not Plenumate Bubbles? 60 6. Simple Attempts at Clear Conception May Highlight Our Mystery 62 7. Rejecting the Denial, but Postponing a Resolution of Our Mystery 64 2 / A HUMANLY REALISTIC PHILOSOPHY 67 1. I Am a Real Thinking Being and You Are Another 67 2. We Are Differentially Responsive Individuals 71 3. Against Descartes, We Are Intermittently Conscious Individuals 76 4. Our Realistic Response to Descartes Raises a Problem of Our Unconscious Quality 79 5. Against Hume's Restriction, Human Understanding Transcends Human Experience 80 6. We Are Experientially Varying Individuals 84 7. We Are Not Bundles of Experiences, Thoughts or Perceptions 86 8. We Substantial Individuals Are More Basic Than Our Thoughts and Experiences 89 9. As We Communicate with Each Other, We Are Reciprocal Interaction Partners 94 10. There Is Perplexity Concerning How We Commonly Communicate 97 11. Much of the World Interacts with Us, But Doesn't Communicate with Us 99 12. We Often Choose What to Think About, and Even What to Communicate 102 3 / DEMYSTIFYING THE PHYSICAL 105 1. We Recall the Denial of Quality and the Mystery of the Physical 105 2. Spatially Extensible Qualities and Intelligible Propensities 107 3. Spatially Extensible Qualities Are Perfectly Pervasive Properties 113 4. Intelligible Physical Reality and a Principle of Constrained Contingency 118 5. Extensible Qualities as a Factor in the Development of Physical Reality: A Problem 121 6. The Problem of Influence for Extensible Qualities in Physical Reality: A Solution 122 7. Mutually Isolated Concrete Worlds and Distinct Eons of the Actual World 124 8. Mightn't the Recognized Physical Properties Just Be Spatially Extensible Qualities? 129 9. The Identity Theory of Qualities and Dispositions 131 10. A Limited Identity Theory? 137 11. Can There Be Spatially Extensible Yellow Entities That Aren't Ever Propensitied? 140 12. Can an Extensible Blue Body Be Attracted by Concreta That Aren't Blue-Attractors? 142 13. Can an Extensible Blue Body Be Perceived to Be Extensible Blue? 143 14. We Consider an Antinomy of Spatially Extensible Quality 148 15. The Ontological Parity of Qualities and Propensities: By Contrast with Hume 154 16. The Ontological Parity of Qualities and Propensities: By Contrast with Lewis 164 17. What May We Learn from Our Demystification of the Physical? 167 18. Remarks on What's Been Done and on What's to Come 172 4 / A CORNUCOPIA OF QUALITY 176 1. The Qualities Most Available to Me Are My Own When Consciously Experiencing 176 2. Our Power to Experience Promotes Our Conceiving Concrete Individuals 181 3. Our Power to Experience Visually Promotes Our Conceiving Concrete Spatial Things 184 4. Might Our Idea of Spatially Extensible Color Be Our Most Central Concept of Color? 188 5. Our Power to Experience Auditorally Can't Promote Such Full Spatial Conceiving 190 6. Might an Extensible Red Object Be Qualitatively Like an Experiential Red Subject? 193 7. The Great Range of Color for Spatially Extended Concreta 198 8. Contrasting Quality Families and a Sketchy Speculation 200 9. Transparently Colored Bodies and Opaquely Colored Bodies: A Neglected Distinction 202 10. Is This Neglected Distinction Philosophically Significant? 204 11. Conscious Perceiving as an Aid to Fuller Conceiving 208 12. Full Conceiving of Concreta Is both Experiential and Intellectual 210 13. Extrapolating from the Highly Experiential in Conceiving Spatial Individuals 212 14. Conceiving Concreta All Qualitied Uniformly, but Propensitied Quite Variously 215 15. Are Felt Bodily Qualities Well Suited to Conceiving Nonmental Individuals? 222 16. How Well Do We Conceive Insensate Bodies as Pervaded with Tactile Qualities? 224 17. Extensible Qualities, Experiential Qualities and Powers to Affect Experientially 227 18. Why Our Idea of Spatially Extensible Color May Be Our Most Central Idea of Color 230 19. We Focus on Substantive Metaphysics, Not Natural Languages or Conceptual Relations 237 5 / A PLENITUDE OF POWER 242 1. The Idea That All Propensities Concern Something as to Quality 242 2. Power-directed Powers (Propensities with Respect to Propensities) 244 3. Power-directed Powers May Distinctively Distinguish among Other Powers 247 4. Propensity, Possibility, Accident and Probability 257 5. Power-directed Powers and Probabilistic Propensities of Very Low Degree 260 6. Powers are Nonconditional, Including Powers to Acquire and Lose (Other) Powers 263 7. Standard Scientific Thinking and Generalistically-directed Propensities 270 8. Individualistically-directed Propensities 273 9. Individualistically-directed Propensities and Cartesian Dualism 277 10. Individualistic Propensities and the Intellectual Aspect of Our Conceiving 279 11. Self-directed Propensities: A Special Case of Individualistically-directed Propensities 285 12. A Human's Self-directed Propensities with Respect to Her Own Experiencing 286 13. Can There Be Any Concrete Entities That Aren't Ever Propensitied? 290 14. Scientiphicalism, Self-directed Propensity and Experiential Awareness 294 15. Temporal Monotony and Temporal Change 297 16. Propensity for Monotony and Propensity for Change 299 17. Possibility, Accident, Probability and Self-directed Propensity 308 18. Basic Concreta, Propensity for Annihilation and Propensity for Continuation 309 19. Self-directed Propensities with Respect to Propensities: The Basis of Stable Monotony 317 20. Thinking about OTHERONS: A Good Long-Term Investment for Substantial Dualists? 322 21. The Confused Idea of a World's Default Setting 326 22. Time without Change 329 23. Do Our Reciprocal Propensity Partners Present a Cosmic Miracle? 331 6 / IS FREE WILL COMPATIBLE WITH SCIENTIPHICALISM? 340 1. A Few Points about Real Choice 344 2. Free Will and Determinism, Real Choice and Inevitabilism: Not an Urgent Issue 347 3. A Widely Disturbing Argument Presents a More Urgent Issue 349 4. Real Choice (Free Will) Is Incompatible with Inevitabilism (Determinism) 350 5. Is Real Choice Incompatible with the Denial of Inevitabilism? 351 6. Our Scientiphical Metaphysic and the Currently Dominant Conception of Ourselves 354 7. Simple Physical Entities and Their Basic Properties 356 8. Reciprocal Propensities, and Physical Laws 358 9. Objective Probabilities, Random Happenings and Real Choices 361 10. Can Inhering in a Field Help Us Have Real Choice? 363 11. Can an -Infinitely Deep Hierarchy" of Physical Powers Help Us Have Real Choice? 364 12. Radically Emergent Beings with a Radically Emergent Power to Choose 366 13. Physical-and-Mental Complexes with a Radically Emergent Power to Choose 372 14. The Scientiphically Supposed Causal Closure of the Physical: How Much a Side Issue? 374 15. Are Physically Effective Choosing Souls Compatible with Physical Conservation Laws? 378 16. Are Physically Effective Choosing Souls Compatible with Other Physical Principles? 383 17. Radically Self-directed Power 385 18. An Exemption from Natural Law Is Required for Real Choice 387 19. The Real Reason Why an Exemption from Natural Law Is Required for Real Choice 389 20. Apparent Scientiphical Incompatibilisms and Further Philosophical Explorations 391 7 / WHY WE REALLY MAY BE IMMATERIAL SOULS 393 1. Recalling the Problem of the Many 397 2. A Couple of Comments on That Comparatively Uninteresting Problem 402 3. The Experiential Problem of the Many 407 4. How the Singularity of Experiencing May Favor Substantial Dualism 412 5. Many Overlapping Experiencers, but Only One of Them Now Experiencing? 414 6. Some Cases of Singular Causal Resolution 416 7. An Immaterial Experiencer's Causally Resolved Singularity Is a Relevant Singularity 423 8. These Are Metaphysical Matters, Transcending All Purely Semantic Issues 425 9. These Problems Transcend Questions of Spatial Boundary: On Complex Complexes 428 10. Problems of Propensitively Redundant Propensitive Contributors 433 11. Our Experiential Problem Doesn't Presuppose Any Suspicious Identifications 438 12. The Problem of Too Many Real Choosers 445 13. Wholly Immaterial Souls Favored over Emergentist Physical-and-Mental Complexes 449 14. A Singular Physical Manifestation of Many Choosers' Powers to Choose? 451 15. Do These Problems Favor Substantial Dualism over Its Most Salient Alternatives? 455 16. Some Less Salient Options to a Quasi-Cartesian Substantial Dualism 458 17. Aren't Immaterial Souls Really Just Eliminable Middlemen? 468 18. Wholly Immaterial Souls Are Generated Abruptly, Not Gradually 471 19. Our Own Souls and the Wholly Immaterial Souls of Nonhuman Animals 477 20. Metaphysically Material Ruminations about Extraordinarily Different Gestations 479 21. People and Nonhuman Animals Again: Might All Souls Be Equally Powerful Individuals? 482 22. Bodily Flexibility as Regards Individualistically-directed Soulful Propensity 487 23. Taking Stock and Moving On 492 Appendix: Beyond Discriminative Vagueness, Safe from Nihilistic Sorites 496 8 / WHY WE MAY BECOME DISEMBODIED, BUT TO NO AVAIL 501 1. Why We May Become Disembodied Souls, with the Deaths of Our Brains and Bodies 502 2. Even While You May Be an Immaterial Soul, Are You really an Existential OTHERON? 504 3. Immaterial OTHERONS Are Just as Problematic as Material OTHERONS 508 4. Metaphysical Asymmetries and Further Forms of Substantial Dualism 513 5. Some Questions about Disembodiment, and about Reincarnation 516 6. Prospects for Disembodiment 517 7. Even If We Disembodied Souls Last for Eons, What Are Our Prospects for Experiencing? 521 8. What Are Our Prospects for Reincarnation? 527 9. The Question of Disembodied Souls and the Question of an Almighty Creator 532 10. Why Our Long-Term Prospects May Be Very Bleak Prospects 539 9 / THE PROBLEM OF OUR UNCONSCIOUS QUALITY 542 1. Physical Objects Aptly Qualitied, Experiencers Differently Qualitied Just as Aptly 543 2. Every Individual Is Qualitied, Including You and Me 544 3. We Reconsider the Problem of Our Unconscious Quality 545 4. We Notice How Descartes Heroically Denies this Problem 549 5. A Quasi-Humean Substantial Dualist May Heroically Deny the Problem 551 6. A •"Compositist" Substantial Dualist May Similarly Deny the Problem 552 7. Will Unconscious Experiential Quality Provide a Less Heroic Dualistic Answer? 554 8. How Fully May Dualists Offer a Speculative Answer to the Problem? 557 10 / HOW RICH IS CONCRETE REALITY? 559 1. Sameness and Difference of Concrete Individuals 560 2. Conceiving Nonspatial Simultaneous Souls, Always Precisely Alike 563 3. Berkeleyan Idealism: Even If Just Modestly Grasped, It Might Be True 567 4. Cartesian Dualism: Even If Just Modestly Grasped, It Also Might Be True 568 5. Substantial Individuals and Our Conceptions as to Such Concrete Particulars 571 6. We Prepare an Analogy between the Properly Spatial and the Relevantly Spacelike 573 7. The Hypothesis of Spacelike Extension: An Analogical Speculation 576 8. The Deflationary Approach: An Apparent Alternative 579 9. An Hypothesized Dimension Far More Like Space Than Like Time 581 10. Our Fullest Conceptions of Spatial Bodies 585 11. An Analogical Conception of Nonspatial Souls 588 12. Our Hypothesis Allows More Fully Conceivable Substantial Dualist Views 591 13. Nondualistic Forms of This Hypothesis: Integrated and Nonintegrated Dimensions 594 14. How Might We Nonspatial Souls Precede Even Our Initial Physical Embodiment? 598 15. Do Immaterial Souls Ever Change Propensitively? 607 16. A More Complex Quasi-Emergentive Dualism: A Constitutional View of Souls 612 17. Drawbacks of This Constitutional View 616 18. Fusional Dualism 618 19. Our Hypothesized Dualism and the Mental Problems of the Many 620 20. Our Hypothesized Dualism and the Problem of Our Unconscious Quality 623 21. Recalling and Addressing the Question of Nicely Matched Propensity Partners 625 22. Our Hypothesized Dualism and the Question of Nicely Matched Propensity Partners 632 23. Does Our Hypothesized Dualism Make My Current Quality Too Inaccessible? 637 24. Two Cartesian Arguments for Some Spacelikely Substantial Dualism 641 25. Is Reality's Temporal Aspect Uniquely Distinctive? 647 26. Why Are Our Concrete Conceptions of Such Limited Variety? 649 Bibliography 654 Index 660 This Bold And Original Work Of Philosophy Presents A New Picture Of Concrete Reality. Peter Unger Breaks With What He Terms The Conservatism Of Present-day Philosophy, And Returns To Central Themes From Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume And Russell. Wiping The Slate Clean, Unger Works, From The Ground Up, To Formulate A New Metaphysic Capable Of Accommodating Our Distinctly Human Perspective. He Proposes A World With Inherently Powerful Particulars Of Two Basic Sorts: One Mental But Not Physical, The Other Physical But Not Mental. All The Power In The World Takes Readers On A Philosophical Journey Into The Nature Of Reality. In This Intellectual Adventure, Unger Reveals The Need For An Entirely Novel Approach To The Nature Of Physical Reality - And Shows How This Approach Can Lead To Wholly Unexpected Possibilities, Including Disembodied Human Existence For Billions Of Years. All The Power In The World Returns Philosophy To Its Most Ambitious Roots In Its Fearless Attempt To Answer Profoundly Difficult Human Questions About Ourselves And Our World.--jacket. The Mystery Of The Physical -- A Humanly Realistic Philosophy -- Demystifying The Physical -- A Cornucopia Of Quality -- A Plenitude Of Power -- Is Free Will Compatible With Scientiphicalism? -- Why We Really May Be Immaterial Souls -- Why We May Become Disembodied But To No Avail -- The Problem Of Our Unconscious Quality -- How Rich Is Concrete Reality? Peter Unger. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 623-627) And Index.